How this Startup Making Specialist Doctors Accessible to People across the Country

DocsApp is a mobile app that allows people to consult specialist doctors from anywhere at anytime.

The app facilitates over 2000 consultations every day in 18+ specialties like Dermatology, Sexology, Haircare, Gynecology, Pediatrics, Sexology etc.

DocsApp has crossed over 2.5 million downloads on the PlayStore and has been declared as the medical app of the year, by Amazon in association with Facebook.

The founders Satish Kannan and Enbasekar have been featured in the prestigious Forbes 30 under 30 list for their contribution to the healthcare sector.

In pic: Satish Kannan and Enbasekar Dinadayalane

Satish Kannan and Enbasekar Dinadayalane were batchmates studying electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras from 2007 to 2012.

In an interaction with Bizztor Media, DocsApp Founder shares his journey with DocsApp and knowledge he gained in the startup.

What lead you to build DOCSAPP? How did the idea come up?

Before launching DocsApp, I was working with Philips Healthcare, doing Research and Development on large machines used by cardiologists and ortho specialist doctors for conducting surgeries. Enbasekar, my co-founder, was working with the IIT-MADRAS research park to develop to a technology to detect diabetic retinopathy.

We conceptualized the idea of DocsApp after realising that a majority of health issues that exist in the present day do not require a physical examination and can be diagnosed and treated online.

With such a unique and new concept, what difficulties and challenges did you encounter in the beginning?

During the first three months it was relatively easy to get doctors onboard, convincing patients to use the app was a tad difficult. However, we surpassed these challenges and we now have over 2.5 million users on the app.

How do you see healthcare sector evolving over time? What impact, will the government policies like National healthcare scheme have on the Sector?

The future of e-healthcare looks a lot like this, the out-patient consultations will and can happen online and the in-patient care will continue as it is, this makes health care easily accessible to all.

Infrastructure costs of offline medical care will be brought down drastically which will make consultations cheaper and doctors will also be able to serve patients beyond their geographical limits. As the access to high-speed internet increases video consultations would also become seamless and convenient.

The allocation for the health insurance sector in the Union Budget seems propitious. Statistics reveal that an alarming 7% of the population is pushed below the poverty line due to the direct consequence of an unseen medical emergency; Even with these alarming numbers, a mere 20% of the population is covered, either, by public or private insurance. Healthcare is one of the key factors responsible for throwing people into abject poverty and putting them in dire financial conditions.

It is critical and the country needs to act up on working towards the betterment of this particular arena.The National Health protection scheme, covering 10 crore families and providing Rs 5 lakh cover per family per year for the medical treatment, is a commendable effort to tackle this mammoth issue.

The revision in GST rate for private insurance is something we were looking forward, we hope this will be addressed in government’s public health insurance project.

What’s next for the company? What are DOCSAPP’S most immediate challenges and goals?

We witness over 2000+ consultations every day, we aim at changing the number to 10,000 consultations every day by the end of 2018.

We are on our journey to make world-class, high-quality healthcare accessible to the masses in the country by building technological solutions that can assist doctors in providing impeccable consultation.

Did the experience that you gained professionally in the medical field before launching this startup helped in making DocsApp what it is today?

Enbasekar, my co-founder, and I spent years working in the field of healthcare – talking to doctors, patients and waiting in hospitals.

Working in the health tech industry enabled us to understand the space better. Also keenly looking for the problems that exist, understanding what kind of solutions get adopted, and why change is resisted helped us to understand the existing problems and also build solutions that work.

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